I am a bike newby. A friend of mine gave me an old bike and I want to put a quick release on the front wheel so I can put the bike in the car easily. I went online and bought an item described as fitting 26" wheels (my bike's wheel size) but the axle is too short for the front forks. How do I measure -- and what do I measure -- to determine the right size quick release to buy? Are there any other things I should know about installing a quick release? (Money IS and object, else I would just buy a nice new bike with all the trimmings I need!)

At a Bike Shop you might find Used QR skewers , for cheap..

When people break a wheel , the replacement wheel has a new skewer,
so the old ones are gathered in a drawer..

the nice folks at the bike shop can answer many questions,
Much easier, if they can see what you have.

QR axles are hollow they only need to sit in the dropout,
not extend its length past the outside .



...

If you currently have a wheel with axle nuts and want to change to quick release, you'll need to replace the wheel. As mentioned above, you need a shorter, hollow axle. You might get lucky with an axle replacement, but the labor may cost more than another wheel.

Used front wheels can be pretty cheap. Is there a bike co-op near you?

What exactly did you try?

I purchased 1 Pair MTB Quick Release Bicycle Hub, Road Mountain Bike Front & Rear Axle Hollow Shaft Set with Standard Spacing, described as: The short release lever for front wheel, hollow shaft size: approx.11cm / 4.33", quick release: approx.16cm / 6.3"

But when I tried to install it, the forks on my bike are too wide. So I need to try again (and I'm afraid I can't afford to go to a bike shop, the nearest one of which is about 20 miles away). One man's cheap is another man's monthly budget...
I have tried to upload photos showing how I'm trying to measure the forks, but am getting the error "You are not allowed to post URLs until you have at least 10 posts"

Do you have a link for the item you purchased?

A make/model/year for the bike?

You mention an axle being too short. QR axles are meant to be shorter than the distance between outer faces of fork dropouts.

I'm not allowed to post URLs until I have at least 10 posts.

No idea on make/model/year for the bike. It's your standard granny bike.

So it's supposed to be hard to get the wheel on and off once I've released the quick release? If I loosen the quick release just until the point that the nuts fall off, I can manage to fight the wheel onto the forks.

photo of my forks with a ruler -- not sure what I'm supposed to be measuring, though

inside measure, between forks

While it looks like it should be a relatively simple process, converting a nutted front hub to quick release can involve a number of pitfalls. The main trick is in picking the right matching front axle. It has to be the precise length to fit into your bikes fork without extending all the way through. It also has to have a thread pitch to match your hub's cones. (you can also swap cones, of course, but then you have find dust shields that will match your new cones and existing hub shell.)

If you have budget restrictions, by far the cheapest solution is to buy a 15 mm wrench to carry with you in the car. Might even be faster than fiddling with a QR.

Welcome to the forum. You will feel right at home here. Standard practice is to provide random information -- some pertinent, some not -- but leave out one small, critical detail. So please tell us: how much too wide, in mm? (It costs nothing to measure before purchase.)

10cm (100mm) wide between the front dropouts is the most common size that exists.

99.9% of the new front axle sets will be designed for that measurement (unless you bought one for a folding bike, or certain vintage bikes). Of course, new Thru-Axle standards are coming out quickly, and are different.

As [MENTION=291784]andrewclaus[/MENTION] mentioned, the quick release axles are about 6mm longer than the inside width between the forks, or about 106mm long. When you get the cones and locknuts installed, about 3mm of axle stub extends beyond the locknuts.

The wheel then slips down into the dropouts, and the quick release lever clamps it all into place.

There are a number of caveats that you may run into. One of the biggest is that many threaded axles are English, while quick release axles typically are Metric. So, swapping frequently requires finding matching axles, cones, lock nuts, and perhaps washers, all the right size to match whatever seal you have.

Not a major issue if you have a few spare parts laying around, but it can be a bit of a hassle if you don't have the spares.

Bike co-ops often have cheap spare parts. Or, as mentioned, a good bike shop with a pleasant staff might dig around and find used parts for a reasonable price. Even buying the RIGHT new parts may be cheaper than hit and miss on the internet.

You can still buy the parts and do your own work.

Do you have "CONE WRENCHES"? They are flat wrenches of various sizes, 13mm, 14mm, 15mm... etc all about 1/16? thick. Some people like pairs of cone wrenches. I can generally do fine with a single cone wrench + a 17mm (or adjustable) wrench.

If it helps, I google-searched on the OP's description and found this on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Release-Bicyc.../dp/B07DJB33JJ

More information would help. Is this a disc brake front wheel? With the front wheel removed, measure the distance (in millimeters) from the outside (between) the existing axle lock nuts (these hold the spacers and threaded hub cones in place. Then measure the thickness (in millimeters) of the fork blade through which the axle must pass. The correct length of axle is (locknut-to-locknut outer dimension) plus (2 x fork blade thickness), less two millimeters (approximately).

I think you're OK.

The tips of the fork blades on your bike are bent out slightly wider than the flat where the QR / nut would tighten down. This is know as 'lawyer lips' and is a feature of bicycle forks that's been around for ~30 years or so. This 'feature' prevents the wheel from falling out in the event a wheel nut or QR gets loose. It also makes it harder to remove / install the wheel, as you've found. Threaded axles (bolt-on) are significantly longer than Q/R axles, so you may be able to pull the wheel on and off without completely removing the nut.

Properly set up, you shouldn't be able to remove a wheel just by flipping the QR lever. If you can, it wasn't sufficiently tight to begin with. You will have to spin the 'nut' to get the wheel on and off, the lever just releases the tension in the axle assembly so you don't need tools. Depending on the shape / thickness of the drop-outs or fork tips, you may have to take the nut all the way off to get the wheel out. The rear axle on my MTB is like this, but not the front, or either of my road bikes. YMMV, there's no hard-and-fast rule to it.

Hi, KayInFL, welcome to bikeforums. I concur 100% with Retro Grouch's post. I tell people with standard nutted axles that quick release axles aren't really all that quick. Just convenient for fixing flats out on your ride. A small wrench kept in your car would be great.

Might be the cheapest and simplest solution in this case.